Demiquas drops ten meters in one fell swoop with the Phantom Step, squeezing the hot, burning breath out of his lungs as he uses the Resilience to heal himself.
　The battle has reached an abysmal stalemate.
　You'll be able to see the enemy, biting down on your back teeth.

　As long as the armor of the Lucrete of the Seven Gardens is stained dark purple, you must inflict damage while taunting its tyranny. That worked out there, as I had been informed beforehand. My melee attacks, including the Demikus, struck and battered Lucrete's stubborn armor repeatedly, cracking it.
　But when the cracks spread over his entire body in patterns like tree branches, Ruseart moulted from them like a boiled egg.
　And what emerged from inside was a white lucéart that looked like the ceiling of a hospital.
　The armor that was peeled off from the figure that seemed to have been bleached, creates the shadow warriors that melted and stretched with the shadows underfoot. The deformed warriors who held huge battle scythes (death size) in slender and featureless silhouettes look like a shadow puppet with no thickness due to the all black coloration.
　Demiquas ducked the rays of light emitted by the white Ruseart.
　It was a distractingly sweet attack compared to the previous one.
　I'm ready to charge again with self-recovery.
　Seeing an opportunity, the 'Silver Sword' repeated a wave attack, but was defied by the shadow warriors. The range and attack power are insignificant when compared to Ruseart. But the number of them is too great to ignore. Even now there are more than ten of them.
　The squad will continue to destroy the shadow warriors while dodging Lucrete's mocking attacks.
　This many enemies cannot be dealt with by the main defender, Dinklon, alone. A total of five warriors, including the disgusting Naotsugu, will have to attract them.

　The shadowy warriors rushed in like insects attracted by the scent of honey.
　Demikus aimed his Wyvern Kick at the crowd.
　This gliding flying kick with a forward range of 150 degrees is Demikus's best secret technique, the Absolute Geheimnis, which allows him to move and attack at the same time. Once this attack is unleashed, Demikkuas can get to the enemy's densely packed area in a flash. That would normally be a bad move. It's difficult to avoid the attacks of a high-ranking raid boss like Rousseart, so if he can get away from the rest of the team, Demiquas will be in a dangerous position. But the black shadow in front of him is not a boss, even if it is a Raid Enemy. It's not a boss, but an enemy wielding such a large weapon is an easy opponent for Demikus as a martial artist to take advantage of.

　With the spiritedness of a cleaver, Demiquas became a dark green meteor.
　He crossed the Coliseum like a snowboarder in midair and broke through the chest of the shadow warrior and slammed the Tiger Echo Fist into his body, which looked as if it had been shot out of a shell.
　The raid mob, which left reverberations in the chattering eardrums, minimized the scythe blow that the raid mob swung down as a final leftover with its back fist (backhand), and Demikus flashed a shadowless leg (Shadowless Kick) from a small stance that put his right knee on his own chest.
　The enemy burst away cruelly like a watermelon dropped on the ground.
　However, by defeating one of the shadow warriors, Rousseart seems to have sucked out the darkness generated from it and still recovered some HP.
　In other words, this is the reason for the step back and forth.
　The white Lucéart would recover its strength.
　The shadow warriors are the catalyst and stall for this. The white Lucéart, reborn white, will apparently regain its strength for attacks again after a certain amount of time. It then re-tints its armor black anew, and repeatedly attacks powerfully, moving tirelessly as if it had just started a battle.
　It is by no means impossible to withstand that tornado, but that is only if the opponent is only Ruseart. If the shadow warriors were left behind, the vanguard, with most of their HP removed by the black Ruseart, would meet their end with the scythe.
　The strength of the raiding force is supported by recovery workers (healers). However, whether it's the barrier of the Priestess (Nagi) or the reactive recovery of the Priestess (Kure), there is a limit to what they can do.
　You can't get rid of them.
　There's no room to keep the small fry alive. However, if we defeat them, we'll be able to recover Ruseato. At one time, the shadow warriors counted twenty, and because of that, the unit was temporarily on the brink of collapse.

　It was Shiroe, abominably, who broke the situation.
-- Shadow Warriors arise as much as the number of people who have damaged the Black Ruseart.
　With that discovery, the 〈Silversword〉 got a boost.
　The powerful attackers would be left to attack, while the healers and ineffective members would refrain from attacking. This way, when Rousseauart turns white, the number of shadow warriors can be reduced to around ten.
　The coward (Shiroe), who only tells them what to do from behind, was a vengeance partner that Demikas could never forgive. It is a very good thing that you are able to get a good deal more out of them. If only the trio hadn't come to Susukino, Demikus and his friends would have been able to slowly adjust to this world. If only that Shiroe hadn't come.
　The cat-headed swordsman can still be forgiven. That swordsman stood in front of Demikus and swung his sword. But the coward never even looked at Demikus from the beginning to the end.
　He didn't even seem to remember Demikus' name.
　Demikas could clearly remember the look on Shiroe's face when he reappeared in Susquino. The man didn't look troubled when he looked at Demikus. That's good. Shiroe must be strong, he knew that from this massive battle. If that was the case, he should have at least made a mocking or belittling expression.
　But this (f*cking enk) only showed the only color of emotion, "It's a pain in the ass".
　Demikus slams his unbearable rage on the shadow warrior.
　A piercing .
　A Wyvern Kick to the side of the gaping flank that he launched with the Phantom Step to eradicate the attack. He launched it with the Wyvern Kick again, this time into the blown-up back.

　Shiroe doesn't see Demikus as anything more than that.
　I'm sure you'll be able to find out what's going on in the world. He vowed that one day he would unleash the pain on Shiroe that would make him regret being born into this world.
　But, but that's not now.
　I regret it, but I don't have the ability to do it now. Even Demikus has to admit it when it comes to this place. A man like Shiroe is strong. His equipment, as well as his technology, even surpasses Demikus.
　Demikus had intended to participate in this massive battle and initially attack Shiroe from behind. Instead of practicing that, he was going to bludgeon the monster. He figured that it must have lifted his mood. He felt much lighter than usual. Demikus's fists defeated the monsters. They were tearing through the shadow warriors, just as they were now.
　Thinking he was getting used to the air of the raid, Demikas noticed the small sword icon spinning around his wrist. That unfamiliar icon was the 'keen edge' used by Shiroe........ It was nothing. Demikus was just enjoying himself with that man's enhancement spell. There was plenty of evidence of that if you looked for it. Haste, which allows attacks to connect more quickly than usual, and True Guide, which allows you to break through the defenses of attacks that are more advanced than usual.
　It's exactly the same as now.
　The shadow warrior who approached to mow down Demiquas raised his scythe.
　The hardening time of the Wyvern Kick is only half a second away. That attack, which should have been received by Demikus by a small margin, however, does not occur.
　If it was just the beginning of the attack on this zone, I would have missed it, too modest Siloe's support. Was it called a "mind shock" or something like that? It's a spell that causes the monster to become dazed by the shockwave of the impact. One second would be a good amount of time to let loose on a raid monster in this zone, even if it was the kind of monster you normally deal with. But that one second is enough time for the Demikus to break free of the enemy's attack radius with the Monkey Step and unleash a huge, water-crawling spinning kick, as if it were a dragon tail swing.
　These all-out assaults and violations by Demikus are all within Shiroe's estimation.
　The breakaway now, and the spinning kick that followed it, just looked like a passionate fight from Demikus, and Siloe let him shoot it.
　Of course, that man didn't have the aggression and physical skills of Demikus.
　All that man did was a slight distraction or manipulation of a cheap enhancement spell. With such mother-in-law deception, he would never be able to defeat a powerful monster.
　What is important, however, is the fact that Shiroe can sense what Demiquas is trying to do and help him do it without being noticed. Shiroe fully anticipates Demikus's actions. To the extent that you can see what that means, it also means that Demikus has also improved his abilities in this massive battle.

(I'll beat him to death one day.)
I'll be in front of everyone when it happens.
I will slap you on your pale face and bring tears of remorse to your eyes.
With this raid, you get a fantasy class--
Raise the bar, hone your skills.
　Demikus leapfrogged and defeated his enemies one by one.
　His job as a martial artist is a warrior with the ability to continue fighting and attack. Although it cannot match the offensive power of the weapon attacker, its HP and ability to deal with abnormalities are incomparably higher. This means that they can survive a charge into a crowd of enemies, and they can stay within range of a raid boss's attack and continue to attack. Demikus did as his hot, burning body commanded, thrusting, kicking, nudging, and attacking with every bit of skill he could muster.
　The battle slowly progressed.
　The momentum that had been pushed in at one point was successfully regained by William's feverish command. The front line defenders, the recoverers, and the enemy's weakened hold. If these vertical lines functioned properly, they would not be so easily destroyed. All we have to do now is eliminate the shadow warriors and cut down the HP of the Ruseart itself, depending on the battle situation.
　Of course it will take time. In that long time, there are countless decisions to be made, and all of them must be handled calmly, carefully, without error, and quickly. Large-scale warfare is all about that sequence of actions.
　Demikus was heat.
　Demikus was fire.
　Just duck, penetrate, and destroy the enemy attacks that appear in front of you.
　He pounced on the black Ruseart and swung his thunderous fist to shatter its armor.
　His thoughts gradually went blank, and he was immersed in the fight, just propelled by the blasting heat. Demikus was more at one with the battle than at any time in the rotten Susukino, more than that day when he fought Nyanta, and without thinking about anything, he just became one with the battle.

　That's why I didn't realize that things had changed until I heard the exclamation that went up behind me.
　It would have been terrible to blame Demikus. Even for a skilled member of the raid, it was too much of a surprise. The Colosseum's great iron bars on the east and west sides of the Colosseum were now completely open, and out of the gaping darkness emerged the frost giants with white eyes and frozen whiskers, the Tartaurgar of the Fourth Garden and the living, billowing, corona-like fiery serpent, the Ibra Habra of the Third Garden.
　As soon as they stepped halfway into the Coliseum, they unleashed a storm of ice and fire from side to side. Their target was the Fourth Party, which had focused all its attacks on Ruseart. The fourth party was instantly wiped out, and the aftermath alone caused enormous damage to all the other units.
　The scene was so ridiculous that Demikus could feel a sickening liquid flood his mouth from his guts.
　Not good enough.
　Demikus and his men are now fighting the Lucrete of the Seven Gardens.
　You must keep your turn, I thought.
　They had been fighting the Lucrete and eliminating their attendant shadow warriors. The equilibrium was slightly upset, and with only a slight increase in the number of enemies, Demiquas and his men were about to be wiped out.
　We were just beginning to go well. Even that was a thin path of possibility to cross, and yet it was like treading on thin ice.

　There were two bosses of the same rank as the Ruseart of the Seven Gardens.
　Even Demikus could see it clearly.
　We can't win.
　I'm not talking about tactics or strategy.
　The difference in strength is so overwhelming that it could ruin such a trivial device. If we were to fight these three bodies at the same time, we would need ninety-six (Legion Raid), not twenty-four (Full Raid), but ninety-six (Legion Raid).

　Behind my ears, I heard a flat voice I had heard somewhere.
--This world is no longer a game. It's over. Your time has come to an end!

　Even these monsters have left their posts to concentrate their efforts, just as we adventurers plan our strategies - or so it occurred to Demikus.
　If Demikus was the guardian of the labyrinth, this would be the first and foremost tactic he would consider.
　They're not going to be the only ones who can do that.
　That's just what happened.
　The air in the Colosseum, frozen in such cruel despair, is torn by a scream that makes you wonder if humans can produce it.
　A face the size of an oversized advertisement painted on a movie theater wall looms. The frozen giant bent over and swung its fist down on its member. With a sticky, mucousy sound, the Summoner became a blot on the coliseum.
　The voice of that count that had reassured Demikus is no longer audible.
　With a roar and a gust of wind, Demikus pushed the startled Shiroe away with his eyes wide open. Shiroe rolled three or four times before being caught by Naotsugu and out of range of the frost giant's twisted club.
　Suck it up, you f*cking coward, Demikus laughed at him.
　Instead, his left leg was crushed into a limp, but he got to see the dumb side of Shiroe's face, so that's a positive balance.
　Kill me, you rule-breaking raid bosses, Demikus spat at me.
　But neither Demikus nor Shiroe could escape the tyranny of the fiery serpent, the Ibra Habra of the Three Gardens, which rains fire from its entire body. They were not alone. Naotsugu, Tetra, and William. And those fierce men of the Silver Sword, stronger than Demikus, who, no matter how many times they tried, were crushed like insects.

　They lost all of their water in an instant, and in the agony of writhing in the flames, the 24 members of the attacking unit were annihilated in the blink of an eye.


◆


　Krusty, who had escaped the stinking hut, was slightly distorted by the neat line of his nose. It's a good thing that you can't get rid of the stench of the goblin's dwelling place.
　I'm sure that even Takayama, who was following him, had trouble seeing it from halfway through.
　It is better to be outdoors, even under freezing winter weather, than in a filthy straw and filth-filled hut. The adventurers' bodies are naturally resistant to extremes of temperature.
　Krusty is no different.
　I'm not sure I've ever seen such a thing.
　There are a number of similar primitive dwellings in the surrounding area, where the ground has been dug shallow and posts have been erected, and tree branches and grasses equivalent to a roof have been piled up from the surrounding area. Silvarac, one of the goblin villages in the mountains. There are countless villages like this in the mountains around here. Each village had about fifty or so of these dwellings, and probably close to three hundred of them were inhabited by the Green Goblins.
　Most of them are nowhere to be found.
　About 30 percent of them were defeated by the Akiva Expeditionary Force led by Krusty.
　The remaining seventy percent are believed to be gathering at the Seventh Falls Fortress, where the Goblin King reigns.
　A month has already passed since the expedition began.
　During this time, Takayama Trilogy and the rest of the expeditionary force had been searching the surrounding area, determining the location of goblin settlements, and in some cases, conducting raids. Their march was cautious and slow.
　From the very beginning, the Round Table had agreed that the capture of the Seven Falls Fortress and the defeat of the Green Goblin King would not be difficult. The goblins of Eastar have multiplied in the absence of the Catastrophe on a scale rarely seen in history. For the Daichijins, this was a disaster of truly nightmarish proportions.
　However, the Green Goblins pose no great threat to the adventurers of Akiva, at least not to the members of the 90th-level fighting guilds. As for the raid into the Seventh Waterfall Fortress, Krusty said that if a few dozen members of a select group of raiders were sent there, they would be able to defeat the Green Demon King within two days. Takayama agreed with this prediction.
　To begin with, the purpose of this mission was not to defeat the Green Demon King.
　The goal was to ensure the safety of the Daichijins who lived in the northeastern part of Yamato. The problem was the tens of thousands of Green Goblins, and even if they succeeded in defeating the Green Goblin King, the mission would be a failure if the Green Goblins were to flood the Silverac Mountains with them.
　The command center, to which Krusty and Takayama belonged, had deliberately let them conduct a leisurely hunt through the mountains. At the moment, dozens of "adventurer" units are scattered across the Silverac Mountains, conducting reconnaissance and sporadic battles.
　Like a fish in a net, this operation has brought many of the Green Ogre's settlements into the Seven Falls Fortress. From their point of view, it was a gathering of troops to start a rebellion against the Adventurers, but from Takayama's point of view, it was all part of the plan.

　Takayama followed Krusty to the stream.
　The interior and all sides of the settlement were being investigated by D.D.D. members. However, under the circumstances, there would be no remaining Green Ogre left. Since it was a confirmation of the current situation, no one was too nervous.
　Krusty and Takayama followed the path, clearing away conspicuous branches.
　The path that they stepped on is probably a beast path for the village's "Green Ogre" to fetch water, but they are no taller than fourteen hundred centimeters in height. But they were less than four hundred centimeters tall. The two of them were taller than four hundred centimeters, and this made it difficult for them to walk along the path, which was covered with thick branches at face level.
　They squinted at the wind as they passed through the riverbed. It was a chilling breeze that seemed to shake off the gloomy air, which was pleasing to the high mountains, but the expression on the face of Krusty, the guild leader at their side, was not excellent.
　This tendency had been felt since the end of the , but the anguish seemed to be getting deeper and deeper. Liese and others were worried as if they were wringing their handkerchiefs, but Takayama has neglected all of that until this point. Krusty was also an adult male, and he thought that it would be bothersome for him to be worried by the opposite s*x like Takayama.
(No, adult doesn't really matter. Men are delicate, no matter how old they are).
　Takayama figured that from his experience at work.
　Besides, Krusty was a long-time friend of Krusty's. He had a pretty good idea of the direction of his worries. So I thought I'd use this opportunity to leave the command center and go on a reconnaissance to talk to you for a bit.
''Milord?''
Hmm?　Yes, Miss Takayama?
　With a slight lag, whether you notice it or not, Krusty turned a thoughtful expression to Takayama.
'You haven't been feeling well lately. Is something troubling you?
"Hmm.
　Krusty covers his mouth with his fingertips and thinks about it. Instead of his usual adamantine steel gauntlets, he's wearing thin leather gloves (gloves) today. The medium armor also suits his stocky frame well. He is a good looking guildmaster. There is no end to the number of people who are fooled by this, but it is certainly useful for management. With that impression in mind, I ask him straight away what I felt.
''Are you bored?''
　Krusty looked down at that high mountain with a sidelong glance, thought for a moment, scowled at the dignified expression on his face as if to deceive, chuckled, and held up his hands as if he had given up.
'I'm troubled. I'm bored.
Please be patient.
I've put up with a lot to get to this day.
　Takayama let out a thick sigh.
　So he was right, although he knew that was probably the case.
　Krusty has an intelligent appearance and his actual actions are rational and precise. He has the talent and charisma to bring people together. He must be proud of his achievements in establishing and running the largest guild on the Yamato Server, D.D.D. D.D.D. has absorbed a staff of 1,700 people, making it larger than any small or medium-sized business in the real world.
　But that public image is not the whole story of Krusty.
　This white, plump young man, who is now in charge of organizing the Roundtable, is a terrible prankster and boredom-prone.

　A few of the old-timers, including Takayama, know that Krusty created the huge organization called D.D.D. because he "wanted to see what would happen if he created it. D.D.D. is not a guild at all. It was part of Krusty's human resources exchange system, and the guild was just one component of it.
　It seems that one day Krusty had a thought.
--This game, Elder Tail, is a lot of fun," he said, "but I don't want to suck up the fun. But to get the most out of it, you need a lot of acquaintances and friends to enjoy the adventure with. The management knows this, and in fact, they have said so. There are various systems for finding friends in the game. However, wouldn't it be interesting if the users created a system for human interaction that went beyond all of that, and used that system to dominate the end content of raids?
　That was the reason for the formation of D.D.D.
　In other words, that form didn't have to be a guild. The guild system just happened to exist on Elder Tail, and it was convenient for them to use it. When Elder Tail was still a game, D.D.D.'s main focus was voice chat and the headquarters website, but it was Krusty who came up with the idea of such a system. It was Krusty who invented all of these systems, as well as the staffing system that centered on regular executive meetings and raid unit assignments.
　He was interested in building an autonomous organization where "departments operate on their own and produce results" rather than commanding. That is why DDD, which has become so powerful, is still an open and transparent organization.
　And this continued even after the catastrophe. With the establishment of the Round Table, Krusty took the opportunity to seek further expansion and autonomy for the organization. As a result, Krusty's curiosity was satisfied, but he had less and less to do with the organization's operations.
　In other words, he had no time to spare.

　Takayama was well aware of his friend's feelings, and he found it troubling. Krusty was the type of man who had an abundance of talent, but too much of it made him difficult to associate with. Excess output, talent, for better or worse, can spread unexpected trouble and fuss around.
　When Krusty can't have boredom, it's not a good thing.
　He's not an outlaw and he's a rational person, so the end result is often to the benefit of the neighborhood, but the commotion and labor that occurs in the process is the bane of Takayama and the others. However, it seemed to Takayama that this "boredom" was somewhat relieved after finding Reinesia, but was it just a buy-in for the girl?
(Pushing it on the princess is out of line...)
　When I think about it, I am filled with apologies.

　I should say something to him. When I caught up with Krusty, who was strolling down the stream, he bent down to inspect a loose rock.
'How can I help you?'
No....
　Krusty repositioned his glasses, which were out of place due to his crouch, and held the substitute he had picked up in front of him. It was probably the tip of a chipped spear.
　The stream made a large arc around it, holding a riverbed with stones smaller than a child's fist inside a deep pool. There were still a few patches of root snow here and there now, but it was a cool scene in the mountains that I would have barbecued if it were summer.
　Krusty kicked a few rocks around with his toes and seemed to have found something.
'This was apparently a training ground,'
'Training, I see. So it's clearing the ground to some extent?
　Takayama returned it honestly.
　Looking at it, there were traces of large rocks that looked like they had been moved to the side of the trees. If you look hard enough, you can find pieces of wood and armor scattered among the stones. This place must have been used for a long time.
　I had never thought of the Green Imp as training, but if they were planning a war, it was only natural. Nevertheless, I don't think they could have increased their strength with it. The level of the Green Imp is very low compared to the Adventurers.
　Thinking that far, Takayama noticed Krusty's gaze and wondered at the seriousness of the situation, and in the next moment, he reached an understanding.

--Goblins, battle training.

　It was a possibility that had never been seen before. Just as the high mountains are preparing to attack the raids in the Seven Fall Fortress in a completely different way, the Green Goblins will be ready to intercept them in a completely different way. This is not the Elder Tail. I don't know how many times I have to realize this, Takayama was filled with a desire to curse his incompetence.
''Milord, return immediately to report and inform all the troops.
I'm going to have to order a search of the training site and an investigation into its effects.
Yes, sir.
　After exchanging a few verbal responses, they proceeded in the direction of the riverbank from which they had come to return to the village. First, they must return to the village and meet up with Richo and Kugel, the scouting spots. After that, they would have to return to the command center along the ridge to deal with them.
　The impatient Takayama was slow to notice that his own weapon, a folding military scythe, was vibrating finely. It quickly emitted a strange metallic sound and emitted a red-hot glow around it.
''Don't let go of that weapon!''
　Krusty shouted.
　But the response to his words was delayed.
　Takayama's weapon, which had been sharpened every time he sucked the blood of the Green Ogre in this massive battle, now sticks to its arm and tries to tighten its grip with a bizarre force field.
　Forcibly twisting his body, whose free movement was being tied up, Takayama tried to request Krusty to evacuate.
　Something unusual is happening. The vibration of the scythe was deafeningly high.
　The impact hit the high mountain's arm as if it had been struck by a large dump truck. What Takayama saw, as he rolled his eyes at the shock that made him certain that the bones in his arm had been shattered in an instant, was the sight of his weapon, which had the name of 'Disaster', glowing red, and Krusty, who had pushed him away, was swallowed up by that vortex of light.



◆


　It was apparently the middle of the night on the street.
　But there was no darkness around. Shadows lit by the white glow of the night-lights stretched out on the asphalt in a crooked manner.
　Shiroe judged it to be late at night because the shuttered shopping street was unoccupied and curiously quiet.
　He walked past a McDonald's and a cell phone shop, and then past a florist's sign without lifting his gaze. It was a familiar, familiar sight. There is no sign of people in the shopping street, which is just silent.
　This downtown area that Shiroe walks through is less than an hour from Ikebukuro on the express train, and the locals are obsessed with the word "Tokyo area", which is a street built around a minor station. There are stations with the same place name, but with names like "north" or "south" scattered around, in other words, it's a suburban city that is being developed as a bedroom community.
　Shiroe was born and raised here.
　However, this made-up, smelly city has always been a stranger to Shiroe.
　The population of this new town is large.
　It's a good place to live, with all the facilities you need.
　However, the distance between the two is a peculiarity, and all residents who want to find something to do, such as electronics, clothes, or sundries for their hobbies, go to the city. This shopping street is the very essence of this town. There is no inconvenience, and everything is available. However, when you start looking for something, you usually can't find it.
　It's not even a small city, it's more like an appendage of Tokyo, but it doesn't have a center for being this city.
　Shiroe's parents also moved to this city when they got married. The two-story, single-family houses, not small but not wide, have many houses that look exactly like their sisters on the same street. The residential area, the station, the few remaining fields, and the trees on the streets are commonplace, ordinary, and drifting away, just like everywhere else in Japan.
　This city without a center is changing rapidly because it has nothing to protect. There are no long-established shops in the apologetic station building or in the shopping arcade, and tenants change regularly. The tenants move in and out of the building on a regular basis, which is probably why it's so convenient for residents to move in and out.
　The same can be said for Shiroe's friendships. A third of the classrooms at the elementary school, which was so large that Shiroe felt it was a waste of space, were empty. When it was designed, they had planned for that many children. Whether this was due to the declining birth rate or the city's budget is not clear. The boys and girls of the same age were changing at a dizzying pace from that elementary school to middle school and high school. It is now clear that this is the metabolism of this new town. But to Shiroe as a young boy, it was vague and unreliable, and he felt that this was a world where people and things could disappear at any moment.

(Come to think of it...)
　I looked up when an idea occurred to me.
　There must have been a local shop in this shopping arcade with a minor menu item called eggplant curry on its signboard. It was right next to a fruit shop, a bag shop and a honey shop. When I was in high school, my friends and I hung out here many times.
　There was no signboard with a stinky Indian illustration on it, however.
　Shiroe was puzzled for a moment, but then she remembered with sadness.
　She had inadvertently forgotten that the Indian curry house had gone out of business long ago, followed by the mysterious Gyudon Cafe, which, predictably, went out of business within a few months, and then the flashy signboard ramen chain that was gaining strength in the city center. It reminded Shiroe of this as he returned to his parents' house for his long university holidays.
　She had been to the ramen shop once, but the taste was so heart-burning that she wouldn't go back again.
　It went out of business, but it was a curry shop that Shiroe wanted to keep going. For some reason, the owner, a Muslim who spoke in Yokohama dialect, was definitely not Indian, and the curry served was more like Japanese home cooking than Indian (although it tasted like Vermont curry by all accounts), but the curry, with surprisingly good aubergine at a reasonable price, was a treat to eat occasionally. Here it is.
It's a shame they went out of business.

　With a sigh, I looked up at the store and saw that it was a chain of ramen shops with a flashy trade name with red letters dancing in black - a chain of ramen shops. Shiroe paused and carefully observed the storefront. On the shutters are the words "Closed on Wednesdays". The storefront, which would normally be full of banners, is quiet, and the name of the store, which should have been written on the overhanging awning, is somehow blurry and impossible to read.
　Shiroe scratched her cheek with her index finger politely and concluded.
(Okay, so this is what losing your memory is all about.)
　The name of that ramen chain is missing from the Shiroe.
'Is that possible?'
　I wasn't too shocked.
　I had seen this coming, and I don't think this was such a big loss in the first place. People's memories fade, they don't even know where they put it away, and it fades away like the junk in a treasure chest with a broken key.
　The scene where the members of Silversword have challenged and fallen, can be recalled.
　I knew that if I challenged them in a large scale battle, I would die. In the first place, a raid is something that is repeated many times to gain experience and establish a method of attack before breaking through. Since he wasn't dealing with a lower-ranked opponent like he was in the case against Safagin or against the goblins, sacrifices, including his own, were natural.
　Shiroe experienced a troubled and lonely feeling.
　Those faint feelings were very nostalgic.
　It could be said that it was the main tone that colored Shiroe and Shirahane Megumi as a boy.
　In elementary school, in middle school, and afterwards.
　I think Shiroe found himself walking around at night with this feeling in his heart.

　There are not twenty percent of the store names here that I can read clearly.
　It's a local shopping mall where I lived from birth to high school. The fast-moving tenants have come and gone, but perhaps Shiroe is the one who has disappeared. They interacted with each other slightly, leaving traces that could not be called traces, and then they disappeared. Eventually, the traces of memory also disappear.
　From a rational point of view, it is Shiroe who has forgotten, and the people who have been forgotten are the shops in the shopping arcade.
　In spite of this, Shiroe still feels a sense of betrayal.
　Shiroe feels shame as she tries to figure out why she was betrayed.
　The alumni in elementary school and middle school probably don't remember Shiroe either.
　Old friends who tended to miss school and didn't fit in with the class, and who always seemed to stay in the library until dusk, it's no wonder they are not remembered. Shiroe chastises herself when she realizes that she's been piling on past classmates from the shopping district, whom even Shiroe doesn't remember.
　That's a very selfish way of taking it out on them.
　It's Shiroe's side that couldn't leave anything behind in this birthplace where everything seems to be there.

　Shiroe walked through the silent streets illuminated by mercury lamps.
　Before long, she was passing through the downtown area, crossing a modern but strangely desolate bridge and coming to a tree-lined street that led to the elementary school.
　The shadow, a close friend of Shiroe's, rose up from the ground and came next to Shiroe in a diminutive form, but he didn't look suspicious. The two of them walked under the green ginkgo trees, past the bus stop benches and into the night.
　Shiroe was the only one who moved in this city, but the sound of a heavy vehicle passing crackled from the main road in the distance. Shiroe stared at his feet against the backdrop of the roar of the distant wind as he proceeded.
　As they approached a large park, Shiroe suddenly came to his senses and turned slightly to enter its interior. The park emerged faintly lit by an everlasting lamp, and as expected, there were no people in the park.
　The pond, covered with tiles illustrating fish, had been built large enough for children to play in the water, but now it was just laying there, reflecting the light off the water. Shiroe and the shadow sought out a bench where they could look out over that man-made pond and sat down.

　In other words, Shiroe concluded that this was a kind of near-death experience.
　Shiroe died during a raid battle with the Silver Sword.
　According to the laws of the Otherworld, Shiroe would be resurrected at the entrance of that massive battle zone, but now it was a time lag, and the unusual experience of death was causing Shiroe to have this dream.
　He leaned back on the back of the bench and looked up at the heavens.
　Not a single star is visible.
(So I'm here again.)
　Shiroe laughed sadly.
　So many nights, Shiroe had spent on this bench. Growing up in a neglected family with both parents working, Shiroe had been a regular at the park at night since she was so young that the city's welfare center workers would raise an eyebrow if she asked.
　It wasn't that she loved this place. I just didn't have anywhere else to go. The house where he spent his time alone was a hard feeling that followed him even when he was hiding in bed, and the downtown area was scary with all the fancy dressed boys and girls. The only way for Shiroe, who was in elementary school, to forget the bad feelings was to walk around the city late at night until his legs were sluggish, and then sit on a bench in this park.
　The faint hurt brought Shiroe a quiet certainty, though not so much that she could hold her chest and squeezed her eyes shut like she did when she was a child. It was the certainty that he'd failed again.
　The same place has always been exactly the same place many times before.
　He had been raised from a young age to be considered mature, and he was certainly very understanding and able to control himself for a child. But that's why the children of his age seemed wild and irrational to Shiroe, and he shied away from them. And he made a lot of mistakes in doing so.
　He had ruined his classmates' concern for him.
　I wickedly shook off their outstretched hands.
　I made a mockery of kindness.
　I threw away a place where I had to stay and fight.
　I couldn't understand my parents' struggles and feelings.
　Each one was a trivial, but irreversible mistake.
　Each failure caused young Shiroe to cry on this bench, and she vowed to do something about it. Some things worked, and some things seemed to make her feel a little better about herself. But I still made a mistake somewhere, and I sat on this bench with the same troubled, sad, and defective feelings.

-- I know a lot of things when I die. I'm a bad actor, I'm a crappy actor, I'm a boring guy. If you die a hundred times, you'll understand a hundred times. That's why it's so hard to keep going.

　William's words come back to me.
　I know what it's like to be separated from the raid team.
　It was much more poignant than losing one's memory, and it was a painful experience that could not be overlooked.
　Shiroe knew exactly what it meant and how this felt.
　If every time he died, he would be sent here again and again, Shiroe had died in that city on Earth where he was born and raised.
　If death was this thing, then Shiroe had experienced it many times!
　The night I threw away my beloved notebook, the night I shook off my friend's hand, the night I said goodbye with a fake smile, the night I said goodbye to the library.
　Dying, in other words, was the feeling of wanting to die.
　Shiroe knew the taste of it, even if it was faint and diluted.
　That's what was in his chest now. It wasn't the fact that he had failed, but the fact that he had made the same mistake over and over again, which gouged the wound that should have been wiped away. How many times had I experienced this feeling?　They made me lick it, at least to the extent that I don't want to taste it again. But then I realize that I'm going to make a mistake and come here. I can't shake the suspicion that I will never be able to step away from this bench after all, no matter how many decades I live, like a shadow stuck tightly to my back.
　The future is so long that it's the future.
　It's so long that Shiroe can't even understand how many decades it is. Will we live that uncomprehensibly long time by making mistakes over and over again?

　It reminds me of Demikus, who gritted his teeth and tried so hard to push Shiroe away.
　I don't know why he did that.
　I don't remember Shiroe doing anything that Demikus could help him with.
　Yeah, fine. William reached out to me with a single word.
　I don't know why that young man took Shiroe's hand.
　I have no memory of doing anything but destroying William's face, and yet Shiroe only has memories of doing so.
　Shiroe just doesn't understand. I really hate myself for being so stupid.

　Even with Naotsugu. In the end, Shiroe came to this point with something to hide, even from her best friend.
　It's not Minami that Shiroe was really wary of. It's not Minami's scouts that Siroe was wary of. He has already grasped such a presence.
　It is the third person that Shiroe was frightened of.
　You'll be able to see the fist that was clenched before you knew it and gently unclench it.

　There is probably something else in this world besides Shiroe and the other adventurers and the earthlings. I suspected that the sacrificial clan was it, but I finally realized that it didn't seem to be the case. But if that's the case, there must be more of that 'someone' out there.
　Let's say that Shiroe and the others were summoned to another world with world class magic, as Ri-Gun said. It just so happens that that other world looks exactly like the game Shiroe and his friends were playing. What could be so convenient?　The odds of that were not zero, of course, but there had to be some other, better explanation.
　Research into brainwave sensing technology was going on even on the Earth that Shiroe remembered. They had been able to extract brainwaves and move a cursor, communicate with people in a vegetative state, and in the latest news, they'd even been able to extract dreams as images to an external device. These researches are mainly in the medical field and will be used in the entertainment field and space exploration within a few decades. This is the first positive news in a long time that has caused a stir on the Web.
　The latest research does not often make the news. It may be possible that some secret research being conducted by a government agency could provide test subjects with a virtual game-like experience. That is certainly a possibility.
　But to do that to tens of thousands of Japanese people at the same time would be a different story, and a ridiculous one at that. Shiroe and the others weren't even fitted with any special equipment.
　There had to be a better explanation.
　Shiroe continued to think about it, putting up with the warning sick feeling he had been feeling for the past few months. That feeling when Li-Gun told him about the . It's not just a matter of time before you get to the bottom of it.
　Shiroe used his contacts at the Round Table to ask for various investigations.
　He asked Roderick to investigate the possibility of flavor text. He asks Soujiro to investigate the ecological changes of monsters. Michitaka to look at the growth of southern plants. For Karasin, a collection and organization of folk tales from the Free Cities of Eastar.
　Every time I looked, I found a wealth of evidence. It's corroboration that there is no "third person" in this world. That's why Shiroe's suspicions were strengthened. The "remembered story" submitted at a convenient time seemed to be evidence for the other side.

(But that's no excuse. I slipped up. I was too scared to know.)
　There was more Demikus could do. Even William.
　I should have told him what was on my mind. Even Nyanta.
　Shiroe's efforts to avoid worrying were probably causing trouble for everyone. She must have realized this many times, but Shiroe had undermined it with her laziness.
　The people Shiroe cared about were surely waiting for him, just as they had been waiting for Shiroe to invite him to the guild that night of the wind.
　They have proven to me that Shiroe's cowardice and laziness only kept people away, haven't they?
　Shiroe thought as he got up from this bench and headed for everyone.
　It would be embarrassing to everyone else if not that much.
　And I have to apologize to Violet Star.
　In that snow hut, Shiroe spared him the words of doubt.
　He spared them. In truth, he should have done his best to say more. For the sake of the future Shiroe believed in, he should have convinced Violet Star. I should have appealed to him that this was an important issue for us as humans in this world now.
　There was no proof of anything, but Shiroe could feel the gaze staring at him. It seemed to have been there from the very beginning, yes, even from the moment of the 'catastrophe'.

　As he recoiled and stood up, Shiroe heard a vaguely familiar voice at that moment.
　It was like a whisper from someone announcing an encounter.